


Up The Downstairs

by Spellfire01



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Dyspraxic Michael Shelley, Emotional manipulation (this is Gertrude after all), I re-read the transcripts so I’m making this as accurate an in character as possible hell yeah, Michael Shelley canonaclly stutters and I think that’s so valid of him, Spiral weirdness, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), You’re doing amazing sweetie!, filling in the blanks if you will, poor Michael Shelley honestly :(, spoilers for MAG 99 & 101, stalking (as a concerned teen), the curious case of how Michael Shelley started working at the Archives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24124534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spellfire01/pseuds/Spellfire01
Summary: GERTRUDESubject is Michael Shelley, recorded 22nd of April, 1993. What is your statement regarding?MICHAELThe...Disappearance of an old friend.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 61





	Up The Downstairs

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy!

[CLICK]

MICHAEL

Do uh, do you usually record statements?  
  


GERTRUDE

[ _ somewhat sharply _ ] Will that be a problem?

MICHAEL

Oh! [ _ nervous chuckle _ ] N-no I just, I, um, I-I-I stutter. Can’t be the, uh, the easiest thing to listen to, y’know? Might take a while.

GERTRUDE

Take your time.

MICHAEL

[DEEP BREATH]

GERTRUDE

Subject is Michael Shelley, recorded 22nd of April, 1993. What is your statement regarding?

MICHAEL

The...Disappearance of an old friend.

[MICHAEL’S STATEMENT]

Where to start? [ _short chuckle_ ] Um... _ [15 seconds of awkward silence _ ] Before I tell my story, I just, you need to know I’m not...I-I-I know what I saw. It’s just, it’s hard to  _ explain _ — [ _ frustrated sigh _ ]

I, I suppose I’ll just go back to the beginning.

When I was around eight I moved schools on account of bullying. I got on well enough in my new one, but then this new kid, Ryan his name was, h-he moved to the school a year or so later. He fell over and scraped his knee while we were all playing Bulldog, and I helped him to the medical office. I, I suppose I felt guilty, I never meant to tackle him but I’m, [ _ giggles _ ] I’m  _ really _ clumsy, and I waited with him while he got seen to. 

We clicked instantly of course, bundles of energy with wild imaginations, it’s not often you find someone on exactly the same, um, wavelength as you.

_ Alice in Wonderland _ was our favourite book, still is. We used to play with the story a lot when we were little, I was always the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, and he was always Alice. Looking back now, i-i-it’s not really supr- surprising. He always carried on the game into lessons, long after we’d stopped playing. Teachers put him down to having an ‘overactive mind’ but...I think I knew differently.

It wasn’t until w-we moved up to secondary school that things started to change. O-o-over the summer Ryan had gotten into a car accident and the trauma must have taken its toll more than expected. Ryan has always had ‘imaginary friends’, I mean, didn’t we all? But this- 

[ _ sigh _ ] Ryan was diagno- diag- [ _ deep breath _ ] he was given the label ‘Schizophrenic’ by the time we were eleven. I-i-it didn’t matter though, despite the stigma around it, he was never ‘scary’ or, or anything like that. More of a danger to himself than anything. I was one of the only people he told- I mean, I’d just been tested positive for D-D-Dyspraxia - which is, it’s kind of, um, i-it’s like Dyslexia but for movements, speech and balance. [ _ chuckles _ ] I have a complicated relationship with physics - which is something we bonded over even more.

Th-th-Thaaaat,that, um. I-it didn’t last long though. Ryan just sort of got into the wrong crowd, made the wrong friends. Drugs, vandalism, that sort of thing. Carved doors into walls and spirals on desks and graffiti’d  _ pictures _ around the school that just- hurt to look at, t-to think about.

I don’t know  _ why _ I started following him. I, I, I’m not- I don’t- That’s not  _ me _ . I think I was just, just worried about him. I’d never had a best friend before, or since really. I suppose I felt...loyalty to him. A ‘look out for your own’ sort of solidarity. 

So, I, I followed him. J-just after school sometimes, nothing too unusual; we lived in the same area so we always walked the same way home. 

I grew up near the Kent Downs, though I, I moved to London as soon as I was able to afford a flat here, so uh, most of our childhood was spent wandering the countryside and woodland. And wander he did...

O-o-on his walks home he would diverge from t-the path we followed and into the long, grassy fields, seemingly in a trance w-with no particular reason or direction and through shortcuts I hadn’t even known existed. I always turned back after a little while though, I wasn’t about to get lost to whatever d-delusion or, or calling was dragging him along.   
  
[A BRIEF PAUSE]  


[ _grimly_ ] I should have stopped. _God_ why didn’t I stop him?

Ryan was taken on a Friday afternoon near the end of our last school year. I’d barely turned sixteen a-a-and I can’t, I cant remember  _ anything _ from that day up until- u-until-

[A DEEP, SHAKY BREATH FOLLOWED BY A WEAK, HUMOURLESS CHUCKLE]

It’s funny how memories work isn’t it? With my, my  _ condition _ at least, I, I, I can’t remember what I did yesterday or last week or most of my birthdays even, and- and childhood memories but I can recall that walk home as clear as day.

It was dreary, and the field we walked though with its long, dry grass scrapped against my legs, making them itch terribly. Ryan didn’t make a single sound despite it, nor did the twigs and shifting undergrowth of the forest we crossed into. I don’t know why but I felt...A pull this time, the need to bring this mystery to a close lured me in and I couldn’t bring myself to turn back if I tried. 

We must have walked for hours, i-it certainly felt like it but under those trees time seemed to freeze, the sun still filtering through high above us seemed to guide the two of us to a shady clearing where, at its centre stood a grand, spiral staircase that looked as though it would be at home in a mansion. Strange flowers twined up its railings and the world seemed to warp and shift as I gaped up at it. 

Then, Ryan started to climb. 

I followed, making sure I was out of sight as he kept climbing higher and higher out of sight. The steps were made of marble, the gloss of them nearly making me slip in my mud-caked shoes and the railing felt cold, far colder than I would have expected for a relatively warm, early summers day. J-just as I thought I might be getting closer to Ryan, the staircase would warp and twist in a way that spiral staircases shouldn’t, and I found myself walking down only to see Ryan a flight above me, or below me, or  _ underneath _ like some, some never-ending illusion of, of  _ wrongness _ where any destination it might have been leading to seemed impossible to reach. 

Had it been hours? Days? Weeks since I started climbing that godawful thing? I, I, I couldn’t tell for the life of me.

When I finally reached the top of the staircase I had ended up the bottom of the clearing at long last. Starving, exhausted and freezing, I could have cried for how relieved I was- until I saw Ryan standing in front of a yellow, spiralling door. I felt a wave of nausea and dread wash over me as I took it in, the dizzying presence of it and the flowers that climbed it’s frame- I, I think, I, I, I think they were  _ lilies _ but with the way their petals and stems twisted together and looped around each other it made them barely recognisable. 

As if sensing my unease, Ryan raised his hand to the swirling handle before he stopped and turned to look at me with an expression caught somewhere between terror and elation and beckoned me closer, before opening it to a long, warped hallway with mind-numbing colours, and stepped in. 

I, I, I screamed for, for him t-to come back, to t-turn around-  _ anything _ but he just laughed, and laughed, and  _ laughed _ until my ears rang with static and my nose dripped w-with blood.

Th-the, the Police brought me home on Tuesday morning after a Farmer found me passed out in the middle of her field, nearly five miles from home, on her daily rounds. I spent a few days recovering in hospital before they deemed me fit enough to leave and life continued on. 

They never did find Ryan...

Whenever I asked about my old friend people would change the subject or answer about something else entirely. I, I um, I had almost managed to convince myself that- th-that I’d imagined the whole thing until I read an article about staircases found in forests by the dozens over the years. Did you know that national park rangers are advised to ignore them and keep quiet about them when starting out? 

I’ve been spending the last few years since then doing any and all research I, I can find on the disappearance of Ryan- I like research, always been a bit of a hobby of mine, learning as many new things as I can. I’ve been uh, unemployed for a month now, t-too um, too clumsy and forgetful to be a waiter and too bad at maths to work for the bank, no one wants people who s- people who s-stutter working in call centres so I, I, I’ve been doing more now than I have in years- but all of my leads have only arrived at dead ends. 

I still see those...those twisting, spiralling shapes whenever I look at a door for too long, and I was wary of stairs for a few years after the incident which I’ve gotten over now mostly. I, I, I haven’t, uh, I’ve had difficulty sleeping since and my therapist mentioned your institute as a way t-t-to have my story recorded and, hopefully, get me some decent rest but... Who knows, right?

[MICHAEL’S STATEMENT ENDS]

[GERTRUDE] 

Yes, well. Thank you Michael for your statement.

[MICHAEL]

Oh, um. [ _ chuckles wearily _ ] No problem.

[SOUND OF METAL CLICKING, PRESUMABLY THE FOLDING OF GLASSES]

[GERTRUDE]

I’m going to give you some advice. 

[MICHAEL] 

O-oh?

[GERTRUDE]

Stop looking for Ryan. Here at the institute we have some of the best researchers available. You, you said you were unemployed?

[MICHAEL]

Um, y-yes, for a month. I, I’m living with a friend so the rent isn’t too awful just yet but, well. Yes.

[GERTRUDE]

Hm. Be sure to talk to Hannah, our receptionist, before you leave.

[MICHAEL] 

R-right, absolutely-!

[CLICK]

[GERTRUDE] 

Hm. Final thoughts. 

Needless to say this is the work of the Spiral claiming yet another victim. There have been more incidents in similar fashion - but not always - over the past year. Something to keep track of, although I doubt it will try anything quite this early since the last recorded case of a failed ritual. 

Any additional research on this ‘Ryan’ has given no logical reason for his disappearance, nor has his body been found since.The Spiral doesn’t exactly work with logic does it? Any locals asked about the case avoid talking about the boy and when under compulsion they have very little to no memory of Ryan whatsoever. Though the Kent Downs is known for its nature reserves and woodlands, the directions Michael Shelley had given us from his school only confirm that the forest he had stumbled into doesn’t actually exist, which I will add, isn’t at all surprising given this statement’s nature.

As with Michael Shelley on the other hand, I have a feeling we will be seeing him again very soon. Handing out job offers is not something I do without good cause, nor do I plan on bringing anyone else into the Magnus Institute during the foreseeable future. He seems loyal enough, and with the recent loss of one of our researchers, a bright, eager-to-please, twenty-five year old could prove to be of some use to me. Whether he actually makes it past the first year, never mind Elias himself...That will remain to be seen.

[CLICK]

[DEEP SIGH]

[ARCHIVIST]

I-I...This is, um...

I don’t...[ _ pause _ ] I don’t know what I expected to find from this statement- well. I didn’t exactly  _ choose _ it, it ‘chose’  _ me _ . 

Every time I think I’ve heard the last of Michael, something crops up again. If it were a statement about the Michael I know-  _ Knew _ , I don’t think it would affect me quite like this. No, the Distortion was an unknowable, unpredictably chaotic liar with little to no shred of humanity left to it. Michael Shelley however...

His first appearance was certainly a surprise. Of course it was, but this- This seems almost tragic; Hearing his life story play out like a broken record, completely unaware to the fate Gertrude would doom him to.

Did Gertrude know that she was going to sacrifice him from the start? Did she choose Michael personally  _ because _ he was touched by the Spiral? She mentioned that she was keeping an eye on the events relating to the Spiral and it’s eventual ritual attempt, although it wouldn’t occur for another sixteen years at the time.

[PAPER RUSTLES]

This statement almost reminds me of Gerry Keay. The running theme of the immeasurable loyalty Gertrude’s assistants dedicated to her and her own ruthlessness...

[TROUBLED SIGH]

No. No I...I can’t dwell too long on the past- at least, not right now. Still. I can’t help but wonder how someone regarded in such a positive light - if any of the other statements regarding Shelley are to be believed - Could disappear without any cause for worry. Did the spiral alter the memories of the people he knew as it did with Ryan? It seems likely.

Hmm. Michael Shelley almost reminds me of Martin, actually, back when I first took up the role of the Archivist, before everything went wrong. If he were around today I think...we could have almost gotten along. Well. Maybe not... A lot has changed over the past few years. I find myself becoming more human as I shed my humanity...

Was Gertrude the same once? No. No, I can’t imagine she would have been, not for the ‘weak old lady’ persona she donned around Michael at least. Then again, I couldn’t have comprehended that Michael could be anything like Michael was. While it’s true that the Distortion  _ wasn’t _ him, and wasn’t  _ not _ him, Helen hasn’t expressed as large a personality change since becoming it. Maybe it’s because Michael had been the Distortion for longer, but then again it actually seems to like being Helen. Did Michael really loose his mind in those hallways? The Distortion claimed that he had remained sane for as long as he was human, but the Distortion is also a liar.

Whatever the answer, this statement has certainly raised more questions than answers...

Yet another unfortunate ending for another undeserving victim at the hands of my predecessor.

[CLICK]

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like my take on filling in the gaps of Michael’s story! Comments feed and nurture my motivation hyenas and really make my day! :D


End file.
